"Shooting Niagara  And After?"

by

Thomas Carlyle

1867

THERE probably never was since the
Heptarchy ended, or almost since it began,
so hugely critical an epoch in the history of
England as this we have now entered upon,
with universal self-congratulation and flinging up of caps;
nor one in which,  with
no Norman Invasion now ahead, to lay hold
of it, to bridle and regulate it for us (little
thinking it was for us), and guide it into
higher and wider regions,  the question
of utter death or of nobler new life for the
poor Country was so uncertain. Three
things seem to be agreed upon by gods and
men, at least by English men and gods;
certain to happen, and are now in visible
course of fulfilment.

10 Democracy to complete itself; to go
the full length of its course, towards the
Bottomless or into it, no power now extant
to prevent it or even considerably retard it,
 till we have seen where it will lead
us to, and whether there will then be any
return possible, or none. Complete "liberty " to all persons; Count of Heads to be
the Divine Court of Appeal on every question and interest of mankind; Count of
Heads to choose a Parliament according to
its own heart at last, and sit with Penny
Newspapers zealously watching the same
said Parliament, so chosen and so watched,'
to do what trifle of legislating and administering may still be needed in such an
England, with its hundred and fifty millions
'free' more and more to follow each his own
nose, by way of guide-post in this intricate
world.

20 That, in a limited time, say 50 years
hence, the Church, all Churches and so-
called religions, the Christian Religion
itself, shall have deliquesced,  into "Liberty of Conscience," Progress of Opinion,
Progress of Intellect, Philanthropic Movement, and other aqueous residues, of a
vapid badly-scented character ;  and shall,
like water spilt upon the ground, trouble
nobody considerably thence forth, but evaporate at its leisure.

30 That, in lieu thereof, there shall be
Free Trade, in all senses, and to all lengths:
unlimited Free Trade,  which some take
to mean, 'Free racing, ere long with unlimited speed, in the career of
Cheap and Nasty;'  this beautiful career, not in shop-
goods only, but in all things temporal, spiritual and eternal, to be flung generously
open, wide as the portals of the universe;
so that everybody shall start free, and every-
where, 'under enlightened popular suffrage,' the race shall be to the swift, and the
high office shall fall to him who is ablest
if not to do it, at least to get elected for
doing it.

These are three altogether new and very
considerable achievements, lying visibly
ahead of us, not far off,  and so extremely considerable, that every thinking English
creature is tempted to go into manifold reflections and inquiries upon them. My own
have not been wanting, any time these
thirty years past, but they have not been of
a joyful or triumphant nature; not prone to
utter themselves; indeed expecting, till
lately, that they might with propriety lie
unuttered altogether. But the series of
events comes swifter and swifter, at a strange
rate; and hastens unexpectedly,' 'velocity increasing' (if you will consider, for this
too is as when the little stone has been loosened, which sets the whole mountain side
in motion) 'as the square of the time:' so
that the wisest Prophecy finds it was quite
wrong as to date; and, patiently, or even
indolently waiting, is astonished to see it-
self' fulfilled, not in centuries as anticipated,
but in decades and years. It was a clear
prophecy, for instance, that Germany would
either become honourably Prussian or go to
gradual annihilation: but who of us expect-
ed that we ourselves, instead of our children's children, should live to behold it;
that a magnanimous and fortunate Herr
von Bismarck, whose dispraise was in all the
newspapers, would, to his own amazement,
find the thing now double; and would do
it, do the essential of it, in a few of the cur-
rent weeks? That England would have to
take the Niagara leap of completed Democracy one day, was also a plain prophecy,
though uncertain as to time.

II.

The prophecy, truly, was plain enough
this long while :  "Dσgma gar antwn tiVgetabullei;
For who can change the opinion
of these people?" as the sage Antoninus
notes. It is indeed strange how prepossessions and delusions seize upon whole
communities of men; no basis in the notion they
have formed, yet everybody adopting it,
everybody finding the whole world agree
with him in it, and accept it as an axiom of [p.674]
Euclid; and, in the universal repetition
an reverberation, taking all contradiction
of it as an insult, and a sign of malicious insanity, hardly to be borne with patience.

"For who can change the opinion of these
people?" as our Divus Imperator says.
No wisest of mortals. This people cannot
be convinced out of its "axiom of Euclid"
by any reasoning whatsoever; on the contrary, all the world assenting, and
continually repeating and reverberating there soon
comes that singular phenomenon, which the
Germans call Schwδrmerey ('enthusiasm' is
our poor Greek equivalent), which means simply 'Swarmery,'
or the' Gathering of Men
in Swarms,' and what prodigies they are in
the habit of doing and believing, when thrown
into that miraculous condition. Some big
Queen Bee is in the centre of the swarm ;
but any commonplace stupidest bee, Cleon
the Tanner, Betles, John of Leyden, John
of Bromwicham, any bee whatever, if he can
happen, by noise or otherwise, to be chosen
for the function, will straightway get fatted
and inflated into bulk, which of itself
means complete capacity; no difficulty
about your Queen Bee: and the swarm
once formed, finds itself impelled to action,
as with one heart and one mind. Singular,
in the case of human swarms, with what
perfection of unanimity and quasi-religious
conviction the stupidest absurdities can be
received as axioms of Euclid, nay as articles
of faith, which you are not only to believe,
unless malignantly insane, but are (if you
have any honour or morality) to push into
practise, and quΰm primωm see done if your
soul would live! Divine commandment to vote (" Manhood Suffrage," 
Horsehood,
Doghood ditto not yet treated of); universal "glorious liberty" (to Sons of the Devil
in overwhelming majority, as would appear): count of Heads the God-appointed
way in this universe, all other ways Devil-appointed; in one brief
word, which includes whatever of palpable incredibility
and delirious absurdity, universally believed,
can be uttered or imagined, on these points,
"the equality of men," any man equal to
any other; Quashee Nigger to Socrates or Shakspere; Judas Iscariot to Jesus Christ;
 and Bedlam and Gehenna equal to the
New Jerusalem, shall we say? If these
things are taken up, not only as axioms of
Euclid, but as articles of religion burning to
be put in practice for the salvation of the
world,  I think you will admit that Swarmery plays a wonderful part in the heads of
poor man kind; and that very considerable
results are likely to follow from it in our day!

But you will in vain attempt, by argument of human intellect, to contradict or
turn aside any of these divine axioms, indisputable as those of Euclid, and of sacred.
or quasi-celestial quality to boot: if you
have neglected the one method (which was
a silent one) of dealing with them at an
early stage, they are thenceforth invincible ;
and will plunge .more and more madly
forward towards practical fulfilment: 
once fulfilled, it will then he seen how credible and wise they were. Not even
the Queen Bee but will then know what to
think of them. Then, and never till then.

By far the notablest result of Swarmery,
in these times, is that of the late American
War, with Settlement of the Nigger Question for result. Essentially the Nigger
Question was one of the smallest; and in
itself did not much concern mankind in the
present time of struggles and hurries. One
always rather likes the Nigger; evidently a
poor blockhead with good dispositions, with
affections, attachments,  with a turn for Nigger Melodies, and the like:  he is the
only Savage of all the coloured races that
doesn't die out on sight of the White Man;
but can actually live beside him, and work
and increase and be merry. The Almighty
Maker has appointed him to be a Servant.
Under penalty of Heaven's curse, neither
party to this pre-appointment shall neglect
or misdo his duties therein ;  and it is certain (though as yet widely unknown),
Servantship on the nomadic principle, at the
rate of so many shillings per day, cannot be
other than misdone. The whole world rises
in shrieks against you, on hearing of such a
thing:  yet the whole world, listening, to
the cool Sheffield disclosures of rattening,
and the market-rates of murder in that singular "Sheffield Assassination Company
(Limited)," feels its hair rising on end; 
to little purpose hitherto; being without
even a gallows to make response! The
fool of a world listens, year after year, for
above a generation back, to "disastrous strikes," "merciless
lockouts," and other details of the nomadic scheme of servitude;
nay is becoming thoroughly disquieted about
its own too lofty-minded flunkies, mutinous
maid-servants (ending, too often as "distressed needle-women;" thirty thousand of
these latter now on the pavements.of London), and the kindred phenomena on every
hand: but it will be long before the fool of
a world open its eyes to the taproot of all
that, to the frantic notion, in short, That
servantship and mastership, on the nomadic
principle, was ever, or will ever be, except for brief periods, possible among
human creatures. Poor souls, and when they have [p.676]
discovered it, what a puddling and weltering, and scolding and jargoning, there will
be, before the first real step towards remedy is taken!

Servantship, like all solid contracts
between men (like wedlock itself, which was
once nomadic enough, temporary enough!),
must become a contract of permanency, not
easy to dissolve, but difficult extremely,  a
"contract for life," if you can manage it
(which you cannot, without many wise laws
and regulations, and a great deal of earnest
thought and anxious experience), will evidently be the best of all. And this was
already the Nigger's essential position.
Mischief, irregularities, injustices, did probably abound between Nigger and Buckra;
but the poisonous taproot of all mischief,
and impossibility of fairness, humanity, or
well-doing in the contract, never had been
there! Of all else the remedy was easy in
comparison; vitally important to every just
man concerned in it; and, under all obstructions (which in the American case,
begirt with frantic "Abolitionists," fire-breathing like the old
Chimζra, were immense), was gradually getting itself done.
To me individually the Nigger's case was
not the most pressing in the world, but
among the least so! America, however,
had got into Swarmery upon it (not America's blame either, but in great part ours,
and that of the nonsense we sent over to
them); and felt that in the Heavens or the
Earth there was nothing so godlike, or
incomparably pressing to be done. Their
energy, their valour, their &c. &c. were
worthy of the stock they sprang from: 
and now, poor fellows, done it is, with a
witness. A continent of the earth has been
submerged, for certain years, by deluges as
from the Pit of Hell; half a million (some
say a whole million, but surely they exaggerate *) of excellent White Men, full of
gifts and faculty, have slit one another into
horrid death, in a temporary humor, which
will Leave centuries of remembrance fierce
enough: and three million Blacks, men and
brothers (of a sort), are completely
"emancipated;" launched into the career of improvement,  likely to be "improved off
the face of the earth" in a generation or
two! That is the dismal prediction to me,
of the warmest enthusiast to their Cause
whom I have known of American men, 
who doesn't regret his great efforts either,
in the great Cause now won, Cause incomparably the most important on Earth or in
Heaven at this time. Papae, papae; wonderful indeed!

In our own country, too, Swarmery has
played a great part for many years past;
and especially is now playing, in these very
days and months. Our accepted axioms
about "Liberty," Constitutional Government," "Reform," and the like objects, are
of truly wonderful texture: venerable by
antiquity, many of them, and written in all
manner of Canonical Books; or else, the
newer part of them, celestially clear as
perfect unanimity of all tongues, and Vox
populi vox Dei, can make them: axioms
confessed, or even inspirations and gospel
verities, to the general mind of man. To
the mind of here and there a man, it begins
to be suspected that perhaps they are only
conditionally true; that taken unconditionally, or under changed conditions, they are
not true, but false and even disastrously
and fatally so. Ask yourself about "Liberty," for example; what you do really
mean by it, what in any just and rational
soul is that Divine quality of liberty?
That a good man be "free," as we call it,
be permitted to unfold himself in works of
goodness and nobleness, is surely a blessing
to him, immense and indispensable ;  to
him and to those about him. But that a
bad man be "free,"  permitted to unfold
himself in his particular way, is contrariwise, the fatallest curse you could inflict on
him; curse and nothing else, to him and all
his neighbours. Him the very Heavens
call upon you to persuade, to urge, induce,
compel, into something of well-doing; if
you absolutely cannot, if he will continue
in ill-doing,  then for him (I can assure
you, though you will be shocked to hear it),
the one "blessing" left is the speediest
gallows you can lead him to. Speediest,
that at least his ill-doing may cease quΰm
primωm. Oh, my friends, whither are you
buzzing and swarming, in this extremely
absurd manner? Expecting a Millennium
from "extension of the suffrage," laterally, vertically, or in whatever way?

All the Millenniums I ever heard of heretofore were to be preceded by a
"chaining
of the Devil for a thousand years,"  laying
him up, tied neck and heels, and put beyond stirring, as the preliminary. You too
have been taking preliminary steps, with
more and more ardour, for a thirty years back; but they seem to be all in the
opposite direction: a cutting asunder of straps
and ties, wherever you might find them;
pretty indiscriminate of choice in the matter:
a general repeal of old regulations, fetters, [p.677]
and restrictions (restrictions on the Devil
originally, I believe, for most part, but now
fallen slack and ineffectual), which had become unpleasant to many of you,  with
loud shouting from the multitude, as strap
after strap was cut, "Glory, glory, another
strap is gone!" this, I think, has mainly
been the sublime legislative industry of Parliament since it became "Reform
Parliament;" victoriously successful, and thought
sublime and beneficent by some. So that
now hardly any limb of the Devil has a
thrum, or tatter of rope or leather left upon
it:  there needs almost superhuman heroism
in you to "whip" a Garotter; no Fenian
taken with the reddest hand is to be meddled
with, under penalties; hardly a murderer,
never so detestable and hideous, but you
find him "insane," and board him at the
public expense, a very peculiar British
Prytaneum of these days! And in fact, THE
DEVIL (he, verily, if you will consider the
sense of words) is likewise become an
Emancipated Gentleman; lithe of limb
as in Adam and Eve's time, and scarcely a
toe or finger of him tied any more. And
you, my astonishing friends, you are certainly getting into a millennium, such as never
was before,  hardly even in the dreams of
Bedlam. Better luck to you by the way,
my poor friends;  a little less of buzzing,
humming, swarming (i.e. tumbling in infinite noise and darkness), that you might try
to look a little each for himself; what kind of
"way" it is! But indeed your "Reform"
movement, from of old, has been wonderful
to me; everybody meaning by it, not "Reformation," practical amendment of his own
foul courses, or even of his neighbour's; no
thought of that whatever, though that, you
would say, is the one thing to be thought of
and aimed at ;  but meaning simply Extension of the Suffrage! Bring in more voting; that will clear away the universal
rottenness, and puddle of mendacities, in
which poor England is drowning; let England only vote sufficiently, and all is clean
and sweet again. A very singular swarmery
this of the Reform movement, I must say.

III.

Inexpressibly delirious seems to me, at
present in my solitude, the puddle of Parliament and Public upon what it calls
the "Reform Measure;" that is to say, The calling
in of new supplies of blockheadism, gullibility, bribeability, amenability to beer and
balderdash, by way of amending the woes that
we have had from our previous supplies of
that bad article. The intellect of a man
who believes in the possibility of
"improvement" by such a method is to me a finished
off and shut up intellect, with which I would
not argue: mere waste of wind between us
to exchange words on that class of topics.
It is not Thought, this which my reforming
brother utters to me with such emphasis
and eloquence; it is mere "reflex and
reverberation," repetition of what he has always heard others imagining to think, and
repeating as orthodox, indisputable, and the
gospel of our salvation in this world. Does
not all Nature groan everywhere, and lie in
bondage, till you give it a Parliament? Is
one a man at all unless one have a suffrage
to Parliament? These are axioms admitted
by all English creatures for the last two hundred years. If you have the misfortune
not to believe in them at all, but to believe
the contrary for a long time past, the inferences and inspirations drawn from them,
and the "swarmeries" and enthusiasms of
mankind thereon, will seem to you not a
little marvellous! 

Meanwhile the good that lies in this delirious "new Reform Measure,"  as there
lies something of good in almost everything,
 is perhaps not inconsiderable. It accelerates notably what I have long looked upon
as inevitable;  pushes us at once into the
Niagara Rapids: irresistibly propelled, with
ever-increasing velocity, we shall now arrive
who knows how soon! For the last thirty
years it has been growing more and more
evident that there was only this issue; but
now the issue itself has become imminent,
the distance of it to be guessed by years.
Traitorous Politicians, grasping at votes,
even votes from the rabble, have brought it
on;  one cannot but consider them traitorous; and for one's own poor share, would
rather have been shot than been concerned
in it:  but, after all my silent indignation
and disgust, I cannot pretend to be clearly
sorry that such a consummation is expedited.
I say to myself; "Well, perhaps the sooner
such a mass of hypocrisies, universal mismanagements and brutal platitudes and
infidelities ends,  if not in some improvement, then in death and finis,  may it not
be the better? The sum of our sins, increasing steadily day by day, will at
least be
less, the sooner the settlement is!" Nay,
have not I a kind of secret satisfaction, of
the malicious or even of the judiciary kind (schadenfreude, 'mischief-joy,' the Germans
call it, but really it is justice-joy withal),
he they call "Dizzy "is to do it; that
others jugglers, of an unconscious and [p.678] deeper type, having sold their poor Mother's
body for a mess of Official Pottage, this
clever conscious juggler steps in, "Soft you,
my honourable friends; I will weigh out the
corpse of your Mother (mother of mine
she never was, but only stepmother and
milk-cow);  and you shan't have the pottage: not yours, you observe, but mine!"
This really is a pleasing trait of its sort.

Perhaps the consummation may be now
nearer than is thought. It seems to me
sometimes as if everybody had privately
now given up serious notion of resisting it.
Beales and his ragamuffins pull down the railings of Her Majesty's Park, when Her
Majesty refuses admittance; Home Secretary Walpole (representing England's
Majesty) listens to a Colonel Dickson talking
of "barricades," "improvised pikes," &c.;
does not order him to be conducted, and if
necessary, to be kicked downstairs, with
orders never to return, in case of worse; and when Beales says, "I will
see that the
Queen's Peace is kept," Queen (by her
Walpole) answers, "Will you, then; God bless you!" and bursts into tears. Those
tears are certainly an epoch in England;
nothing seen, or dreamt of, like them in the
History of poor England till now.

In the same direction we have also our
remarkable "Jamaica Committee;" and a
Lord Chief Justice 'speaking six hours'
(with such "eloquence," such &c. &c. as
takes with ravishment the general Editorial
ear, Penny and Three-penny), to prove
that there is no such thing, nor ever was, as
Martial Law ;  and that any governor,
commanded soldier, or official person, putting
down the frightfullest Mob-insurrection,
Black or White, shall do it with the rope
round his neck, by way of encouragement
to him. Nobody answers this remarkable
Lord Chief Justice, "Lordship, if you were
to speak for six hundred years, instead of
six hours, you would only prove the more
to us that, unwritten if you will, but real
and fundamental, anterior to all written
laws, and first making written laws possible,
there must have been, and is, and will be,
coeval with Human Society, from its first
beginnings to its ultimate end, an actual Martial
Law, of more validity than any other
law whatever. Lordship, if there is no
written law that three and three shall be
six, do you wonder at the Statute Book for
that omission? You may shut those eloquent
lips and go home to dinner. May your
shadow never be less; greater it perhaps
has little chance of being."

Truly one knows not whether less to
venerate the Majesty's Ministers, who, instead of rewarding their Governor Eyre,
throw him out of window to a small loud
group, small as now appears, and nothing
but a group or knot of rabid Nigger-Philanthropists, barking furiously in the gutter,
and threatening one's Reform Bill with loss
of certain friends and votes (which could
not save it, either, the dear object),  or
that other unvenerable Majesty's Ministry,
which on Beales's generous undertaking for
the Peace of an afflicted Queen's Majesty,
bursts into tears.

Memorable considerably, and altogether
new in our History, are both those ministerial feats; and both point significantly the
same way. The perceptible, but as yet unacknowledged truth is, people are getting
dimly sensible that our social affairs and
arrangements, all but the money-safe, are
pretty universally a Falsehood, an elaborate
old-established Hypocrisy, which is even
serving its own poor private purpose ill, and
is openly mismanaging every public purpose or interest, to a shameful and indefensible extent. For such a Hypocrisy, in any
detail of it (except the money-safe), nobody,
official or other, is willing to risk his skin;
but cautiously looks round whether there is
no postern to retire by, and retires accordingly,  leaving any mob-leader, Beales,
John of Leyden, Walter-the-Pennyless, or
other impotent enough loud individual, with
his tail of loud Roughs, to work their own
sweet will. Safer to humour the mob than
repress them, with the rope about your
neck. Everybody sees the Official slinking
off, has a secret fellow-feeling with it; nobody admires it; but the spoken
diapproval is languid, and generally from the teeth
outwards. "Has not everybody been very
good to you?" say the highest Editors, in
these current days, admonishing and soothing down Beales and his
Roughs. So that
if loud mobs, supported by one or two Eloquences in the House, choose to proclaim,
some day, with vociferation, as some day
they will, "Enough of kingship, and its
grimacings and futilities! Is it not a Hypocrisy and
Humbug, as you yourselves well
know? We demand to become Commonwealth of
England; that will perhaps be
better, worse it cannot be!"  in such case,
how much of available resistance does the
reader think would ensue? From official
persons, with the rope round their neck,
should you expect a great amount? I do
not; or that resistance to the death would
anywhere, 'within these walls' or without,
be the prevailing phenomenon.

For we are a people drowned in Hypoc-[p.679]risy; saturated with it to the bone  alas
it is even so, in spite of far other intentions
at one time, and of a languid, dumb, but
ineradicable inward protest against it still:
 and we are beginning to be universally conscious of that horrible condition, and by
no means disposed to die in behalf of continuing it! It has lasted long, that unblessed
process; process of 'lying to steep in the
Devil's Pickle,' for above two hundred years
(I date the formal beginning of it from the
year 1660, and desperate return of Sacred
Majesty after such an ousting as it had
got); process which appears to be now
about complete. Who could regret the finis
of such a thing; finis on any terms what-
ever! Possibly it will not be death eternal,
possibly only death temporal, death temporary.

My neighbours, by the million against
one, all expect that it will almost certainly
be New-birth, a Saturnian time,  with
gold nuggets themselves more plentiful than
ever. or us we will say, Rejoice in the awakening of poor England even on these
terms. To lie torpid, sluttishly gurgling
and mumbling, spiritually in soak 'in the
Devil's Pickle' (choicest elixir the Devil
brews,  is not unconscious or half-conscious Hypocrisy, and quiet
Make-believe of
yourself and others, strictly that?) for
above two hundred years: that was the infinitely dismal condition, all others are but
finitely so.

IV.

Practically the worthiest inquiry, in regard to all this, would be: "What are probably
the steps towards consummation all this
will now take; what are, in main features,
the issues it will arrive at, on unexpectedly
(with immense surprise to the most) shooting
Niagara to the bottom? And above
all, what are the possibilities, resources,
impediments, conceivable methods and attemptings of its ever getting out
again?"
Darker subject of Prophecy can be laid before no man: and to be candid with myself
up to this date, I have never seriously meditated it, far less grappled
with it as a Problem in any sort practical. Let me avoid branch
first of this
inquiry altogether. If "immortal smash,"
and shooting of the Falls, be the one issue, ahead, our and the reformed Parliament's
procedures and adventures in arriving there
are not worth conjecturing in comparison!
 And yet the inquiry means withal, both
branches of it mean, "What are the duties
of good citizens in it, now and onwards?" Meditated it must be, and light sought on
it, however hard or impossible to find! It
is not always the part of the infinitesimally
small minority of wise men and good citizens to sit silent; idle they should never sit.

Supposing the
Commonwealth established,
and Democracy rampant, as in America, or
in France by fits for 70 odd years past, 
it is a favourable fact that our Aristocracy~
in their essential height of position, and capability (or possibility) of doing good, are
not at once likely to be interfered with
that they will be continued farther on their
trial, and only the question somewhat more
stringently put to them, "What are you good
for, then? Show us, show us, or else disappear!" I regard this, potentially a great
benefit;  springing from what seems a mad
enough phenomenon, the fervid zeal in behalf of this "new Reform Bill" and all
kindred objects, which is manifested by the
better kind of our young Lords and Honourables; a thing very curious to me.
Somewhat resembling that bet of the impetuous
Irish carpenter, astride of his plank firmly
stuck out of window in the sixth story;
"Two to one, I can saw this plank in so
many minutes;" and sawing accordingly,
fiercely impetuous,  with success! But
from the maddest thing, as we said, there
usually may come some particle of good
withal (if any poor particle of good did lie
in it, waiting to he disengaged !)  and this
is a signal instance of that kind. Our Aristocracy are not hated or disliked by any
Class of the People, but on the contrary are looked up to,  with a certain vulgarly
human admiration, and spontaneous recognition of their good qualities and good
fortune, which is by no means wholly envious
or wholly servile,  by all classes, lower
and lowest class included. And indeed, in
spite of lamentable exceptions too visible
all round, my vote would still be, That from Plebs to
Princeps, there was still no Class
among us intrinsically so valuable and recommendable.

What the possibilities of our Aristocracy
might still be? this is a question I have often asked myself. Surely their possibilities might still be considerable; though I
confess they lie in a most abstruse, and as
yet quite uninvestigated condition. But a
body of brave men, and of beautiful polite
women, furnished gratis as they are,  some
of them (as my Lord Derby, I am told, in
a few years will be) with not far from two-thirds of a million sterling annually,
ought to be good for something, in a society
mostly fallen vulgar and chaotic like ours. [p.680]
More than once, I have been affected with
a deep sorrow and respect for noble souls
among them, and their high stoicism, and
silent resignation to a kind of life which
they individually could not alter, and saw
to be so empty and paltry: life of Giving
and receiving Hospitalities in a gracefully
splendid manner. "This, then" (such mute
soliloquy I have read on some noble brow),
"this, and something of Village-schools, of
Consulting with the Parson, care of Peasant
Cottages and Economies, is to be all our
task in the world? Well, well let us at
least do this, in our most perfect way!"

In past years I have sometimes thought
what a thing it would be, could the Queen
"in Council" (in Parliament or wherever
it were) pick out some gallant-minded,
stout, well gifted Cadet, younger son of a
Duke, of an Earl, of a Queen herself;
younger Son doomed now to go mainly to
the Devil, for absolute want; of a career; 
and say to him, "Young fellow, if there do
lie in you potentialities of governing, of
gradually guiding, leading and coercing to
a noble goal, how sad is it they should be
all lost! They are the grandest gifts a mortal can have; and they
are of all, the most
necessary to other mortals in this world.
See, I have scores on scores of 'Colonies,'
all ungoverned, and nine-tenths of them full
of jungles, boa constrictors, rattlesnakes,
Parliamentary Eloquences, and Emancipated Niggers, ripening towards nothing
but destruction: one of these you shall have,
you as Vice-King; on rational conditions,
and ad vitam aut culpam it shall be yours
(and your posterity's if worthy): go you
and buckle with it, in the name of Heaven
and let us see what you will build it to!" To something how much better than the
Parliamentary Eloquences are doing, 
thinks the reader? Good Heavens, these
West-India Islands, some of them, appear
to be the richest and most favoured spots on
the Planet Earth. Jamaica is an angry subject, and I am shy to speak of it. Poor
Dominica itself is described to me in a way to
kindle a heroic young heart; look at Dominica for an instant:

Hemispherical, they say, or in the shape
of an Inverted Washbowl; rim of it, first
twenty miles of it all round, starting from
the sea, is flat alluvium, the fruitfullest in
Nature, fit for any noblest spice or product,
but unwholesome except for Niggers held
steadily to their work: ground then gradually rises,
umbrageously rich throughout,
becomes fit for coffee; still rises, now bears
oak woods, cereals, Indian corn, English
wheat, and in this upper portion is salubrious and delightful for the European,  who
might there spread and grow, according to
the wisdom given him; say only to a population of 100,000 adult men; well fit to
defend their Island against all comers, and
beneficently keep steady to their work, a
million of Niggers on the lower ranges.
What a kingdom my poor Frederick William, followed by his Frederic, would have
made of this Inverted Washbowl; clasped
round, and lovingly kissed and laved, by
the beautifullest seas in the world, and beshone by the grandest sun and sky! "For
ever impossible," say you; "contrary to all
our notions, regulations, and ways of proceeding or of thinking?" Well, I dare say.
And the state your regulations have it in, at
present, is: Population of 100 white men
(by no means of select type); unknown cipher of rattlesnakes, profligate Niggers, and
Mulattoes; governed by a Piebald Parliament of Eleven (head Demosthenes there a
Nigger Tinman),  and so exquisite a care
of Being and of Well-being that the old
Fortifications have become jungle quarries
(Tinman "at liberty to tax himself"), vigorous roots penetrating the old ashlar, dislocating it everywhere, with tropical effect;
old cannon going quietly to honeycomb and
oxid of iron in the vigorous embrace of
jungle: military force nil, police force next
to nil: an Island capable of being taken by
the crew of a man-of-war's boat. And indeed it was nearly lost, the other year, by
an accidental collision of two Niggers on
the street, and a concourse of other idle
Niggers to see, who would not go away
again, but idly re-assembled with increased
numbers on the morrow, and with ditto the
next day; assemblage pointing ad infinitum
seemingly,  had not some charitable small
French Governor, from his bit of Island
within reach, sent over a Lieutenant and
twenty soldiers, to extinguish the devouring
absurdity, and order it home straightway
to its bed; which instantly saved this valuable Possession of ours, and left our
Demosthenic Tinman and his Ten, with their liberty to tax themselves as heretofore. Is not
"Self-government" a sublime thing, in
Colonial Islands and others? But to leave
all this.

V.

I almost think, when once we have made
the Niagara leap, the better kind of our Nobility, perhaps after experimenting, will
more and more withdraw themselves from
the Parliamentary, Oratorical or Political
element; leaving that to such Cleon the [p.681]
Tanner and Company as it rightfully belongs
to; and be far more chary of their speech
than now. Speech, issuing in no deed, is
hateful and contemptible:  how can a man
have any nobleness who knows not that?
In God's name let us find out what of noble
and profitable we can do; if it be nothing,
let us at least keep silence, and bear gracefully our strange lot!

The English Nobleman has still left in
him, after such sorrowful erosions, something
considerable of chivalry and magnanimity;
polite he is, in the finest form; politeness,
modest, simple, veritable, ineradicable,
dwells in him to the bone; I incline to call
him the politest kind of nobleman or man
(especially his wife the politest and gracefullest kind of woman) you will find in any
country. An immense endowment this if
you consider it well! A very great and indispensable help to whatever other faculties
of kingship a man may have. Indeed it
springs from them all (its sources, every
kingly faculty lying in you); and is as the
beautiful natural skin, and visible sanction,
index, and outcome of them all. No king
can rule without it; none but potential kings
can really have it. In the crude, what we
call unbred or Orson form, all "men of
genius" have it; but see what it avails some
of them,  your Samuel Johnson, for instance,  in that crude form, who was so
rich in it, too, in the crude way!

It is perhaps a fortunate circumstance,
that the population has no wild notions, no
political enthusiasms of a "New Era" or
the like. This, though in itself a dreary
and ignoble item, in respect of the revolutionary change, may nevertheless be
for good, if the Few shall be really high and
brave, as things roll on.

Certain it is, there is nothing but vulgarity in our
People's expectations, resolutions
or desires, in this Epoch. It is all a peaceable
mouldering or tumbling down from mere
rottenness and decay; whether slowly mouldering or rapidly tumbling, there will be
nothing found of real or true in the rubbish-heap, but a most true desire of making
money easily, and of eating it pleasantly.
A poor ideal for "reformers," sure enough.
But it is the fruit of long antecedents, too;
and from of old our habits in regard to "re-
formation," or repairing what went wrong
(as something is always doing), have been
strangely didactic.

And to such length have we at last
brought it, by our wilful, conscious and now
long-continued method of using varnish, instead of actual repair by honest
carpentry,
of what we all knew and saw to have gone
undeniably wrong in our procedures and
affairs! Method deliberately, steadily, and
even solemnly continued, with much admiration of it from ourselves and others, as the
best and only good one, for above two hundred years. Ever since that
annus mirabilis
of 1660, when Oliver Cromwell's dead clay
was hung on the gibbet, and a much easier
"reign of Christ" under the divine gentleman called Charles II. was thought the fit
thing, this has been our steady method:
varnish, varnish; if a thing have grown so
rotten that it yawns palpable, and is so inexpressibly ugly that the eyes of the very
populace discern it and detest it,  bring
out a new pot of varnish, with the requisite
supply of putty; and lay it on handsomely.
Don't spare varnish; how well it will all
look in a few days, if laid on well! Varnish
alone is cheap and is safe; avoid carpentering,
chiselling, sawing and hammering on
the old quiet House ;  dry-rot is in it, who
knows how deep; don't disturb the old
beams and junctures: varnish, varnish, if
you will be blessed by gods and men! This
is called the constitutional System, Conservative System, and other fine names; and
this at last has its fruits, such as we see.
Mendacity hanging in the very air we
breathe; all men become, unconsciously or
half or wholly consciously,  liars to their
own souls and to other men's; grimacing,
finessing, periphrasing, in continual hypocrisy of word, by way of varnish to
continual past, present, future, misperformance of
thing:  clearly sincere about nothing whatever, except in silence, about the
appetites of their own huge belly, and the readiest method of assuaging these. From a
Population of that sunk kind, ardent only
in pursuits that are low and industries
that are sensuous and beaverish, there is
little peril of human enthusiasms, or revolutionary transports, such as occurred in 1789,
for instance. A low-minden pecus all that;
essentially torpid and ignavum, on all that
is high or nobly human in revolutions.

It is true there is in such a population, of
itself, no help at all towards reconstruction
of the wreck of your Niagara plunge; of
themselves they, with whatever cry of "liberty" in their mouths, are inexorably marked
by Destiny as slaves; and not even the immortal gods could make them free, 
except by making them anew and on a different pattern. No help in them at all, to
your model Aristocrat, or to any noble man
or thing. But then likewise there is no
hindrance, or a minimum of it! Nothing
there in bar of the noble Few, who we al-[p.682]ways trust will be born to us, generation
after generation; and on whom and whose
living of a noble and valiantly cosmic life
amid the worst impediments and hugest anarchies, the whole of our hope depends.
Yes, on them only! If amid the thickest
welter of surrounding gluttony and baseness, and what must be reckoned bottomless
anarchy from shore to shore, there be found
no man, no small but invincible minority of
men, capable of keeping themselves free
from all that, and of living a heroically human life,
while the miIlions round them are
noisily living a mere beaverish or dog-like
one, then truly all hope is gone. But we
always struggle to believe Not. Aristocracy by title, by fortune, and position, who
can doubt but there are still precious possibilities among the chosen of that class?
And if that fail us, there is still, we hope,
the unclassed Aristocracy by nature, not
inconsiderable in numbers, and supreme in
faculty, in wisdom, human talent, nobleness
and courage "who derive their patent of nobility direct from Almighty God." If
indeed these also fail us, and are trodden
out under the unanimous torrent of brutish
hoofs and hobnails, and cannot vindicate
themselves into clearness here and there,
but at length cease even to try it,  then
indeed it is all ended: national death, scandalous "Copper-Captaincy" as of France,
stern Russian Abolition and Erasure as of
Poland; in one form or another, well deserved annihilation, and dismissal from God's
universe, that and nothing else lies ahead
for our once heroic England too.

How many of our Titular Aristocracy
will prove real gold when thrown into the
crucible? That is always a highly interesting question to me; and my answer or
guess has still something considerable of
hope lurking in it. But the question as to
our Aristocracy by Patent from God the
Maker, is infinitely interesting. How many
of these, amid the ever-increasing bewilderments, and welter of impediments, will be
able to develop themselves into something
of Heroic Well-doing by act and by word?
How many of them will be drawn, pushed
and seduced, their very docility and lovingness assisting, into the universal vulgar
whirlpool of Parliamenteering, Newspapering, Novel-writing, Comte-Philosophy-ing,
immortal Verse-writing, &c. &c. (if of vocal
turn, as they mostly will be, for some time
yet?) How many, by their too desperate
resistance to the unanimous vulgar of a
Public round them, will become spasmodic
instead of strong; and will be overset, and
trodden out, under the hoofs and hobnails
above-said? Will there, in short, prove to
be a recognisable small nucleus of Invincible ''Aristoi
fighting for the Good Cause, in
their various wisest ways, and never ceasing
or slackening till they die? This is the
question of questions, on which all turns;
in the answer to this, could we give it clearly, as no man can, lies the oracle-response,
"Life for you," or "Death for you!"
Looking into this, there are doubtful dubitations, many. But considering what
of
Piety, the devoutest and the bravest yet
known, there once was in England, and how
extensively, in stupid, maundering and degraded forms, it still lingers, one is inclined
timidly to hope the best!

The best: for if this small Aristocratic
nucleus can hold out and work, it is in the
sure case to increase and increase; to become (as Oliver once termed them) "a
company of poor men, who will shed all
their blood rather." An openly belligerent
company, capable of taking the biggest
slave Nation by the beard, and saying to it,
"Enough, ye slaves, and servants of the
mud-gods; all this must cease! Our heart
abhors all this; our soul is. sick under it;
God's curse is on us while this lasts. Behold
we will all die rather than that this last.
Rather all die we say;  what is your view
of the corresponding alternative on your
own part?" I see well it must at length
come to battle; actual fighting, bloody
wrestling, and a great deal of it: but were
it unit against thousand, or against thous-
and-thousand, on the above terms, I know
the issue, and have no fear about it. That
also is an issue which has been often tried
in Human History; and "while God lives"
 (I hope the phrase is not yet obsolete,
for the fact is eternal, tho' so many have
forgotten it!) said issue can or will fall
only one way.

VI.

What we can expect this Aristocracy of
Nature to do for us? They are of two kinds:
the Speculative, speaking or vocal; and the
Practical or industrial, whose function is silent. These are of brother quality; but
they go very different roads: "men of genius" they all
emphatically are, the "inspired
Gift of God" lodged in each of them. They
do infinitely concern the world and us; especially that first or speaking class, 
provided God have "touched their lips with his
hallowed fire!" Supreme is the importance [p.683]
of these. They are our inspired speakers
and seers, the light of the world; who are
to deliver the, world from its swarmeries,
its superstitions (political or other); 
priceless and indispensable to us that first
Class!

Nevertheless I will omit these at present,
and touch only of the second, or Industrial
Hero, as more within my limits and the
reader's.

This Industrial hero, here and there recognisable, and known to me, as
developing himself, and as an opulent and dignified
kind of man, is already almost an Aristocrat by class. And if his chivalry is still
somewhat in the Orson form, he is already
by intermarriage and otherwise coming into
'contact with the Aristocracy by title; and
by degrees, will acquire the fit Valentinism,
and other more important advantages there.
He cannot do better than unite with this
naturally noble kind of Aristocrat by title;
the Industrial noble and this one are brothers- born; called and impelled to co-operate
and go together. Their united result is
what we want from both. And the Noble
of the Future,  if there be any such, as I
believe there must;  will have grown out
of both. A new "Valentine;" and perhaps a considerably improved,  by such
recontact with his wild Orson kinsman, and
with the earnest veracities this latter has
learned in the Woods and the Dens of
Bears.

The Practical "man of genius" will
probably not be altogether absent from the
Reformed Parliament :  his Make-believe,
the vulgar millionaire, (truly a "bloated"
specimen, this!) is sure to be frequent there!
and along with the multitude of brass
guineas, it will be very salutary to have a
gold one or two !  In or out of Parliament,
our Practical hero will find no end of work ready for
him. It is he that has to recivilize, out of its now utter savagery, the
world of industry;  think what a set of
items: to change nomadic contract into permanent; annihilation of the soot and dirt
and squalid horror now defacing this England, once so clean and comely while it was
poor; matters sanitary (and that not to the
body only) for his people; matters governmental for them; matters, &c. &c. ; 
no want of work for this Hero, through a great
many generation yet!

And indeed reformed Parliament itself,
with or without his presence, will you would
suppose have to start at once upon the industrial question and go quite deep into it.
That of Trades Union, in quest of its "4
eights,"* with
assassin pistol in its hand will at once urge itself on reformed
Parliament: and. reformed Parliament
will give us Blue Books upon it if
nothing further. Nay, almost still more
urgent, and what I could reckon,  as
touching on our Ark of our Covenant, on
sacred free trade itself,  to be the preliminary of all, there is the immense and
universal question of Cheap and Nasty, let
me explain it a little.

"Cheap and Nasty;" there is a pregnancy in that poor vulgar proverb, which I
wish we better saw and valued! It is the
rude indignant protest of human nature
against a mischief which in all times and
places taints it or lies near it, and which
never in any time or place was so like utterly overwhelming it as here and now.
Understand, if you will consider it, that no good
man did, or ever should, encourage "cheapness" at the ruinous expense
of unfitness,
which is always infidelity, and is dishonourable to a man. If I want an article, let it
be genuine, at whatever price; if the price is
too high for me, I will go without it, unequipped with it for the present,  I shall
not have equipped myself with a hypocrisy,
at any rate! This, if you will reflect, is
primarially the rule of all purchasing or employing men. They are not permitted to
encourage, patronize, or in any form countenance the working, wearing, or acting of
Hypocrisies in this world. On the contrary, they are to
hate all such with a perfect hatred; to do their best in extinguishing them as the poison of mankind. This
is the temper for purchasers of work; how
much more that for doers and producers of
it! Work, every one of you, like the Demiurgus or Eternal World-builder; work,
none of you like the Diabolus or Denier
and Destroyer,  under penalties!

And now, if this is the fact, that you are
not to purchase, to make or to vend any
ware or product of the "cheap and nasty"
genus, and cannot in any case do it without
sin, and even treason against the Maker of
you,  consider what a quantity of sin, of
treason petty and high, must be accumulating in poor England every day! It is
certain as the National Debt; and what
are all National money Debts in comparison?
Do you know the shop, saleshop, workshop,
industrial establishment temporal or spiritual, in broad England, where genuine work is
to be had? I confess I hardly do; the more [p.684]
is my sorrow! For a whole Pandora's Box
of evils lies in that one fact, my friend;
that one is enough for us, and may be taken
as the sad summary of all. Universal shoddy
and Devil's dust cunningly varnished over;
that is what you will find presented you in
all places, as ware invitingly cheap, if your
experience is like mine. Yes; if Free
Trade is the new religion, and if Free
Trade do mean, Free racing with unlimited
velocity in the career of Cheap and Nasty,
 our practical hero will be infinitely anxious to deal with that question, and see how
Free Trade with such a devil in the belly of
it, is to be tied again a little.

One small example only! London bricks
are reduced to dry clay again in the course
of sixty years or sooner. Bricks, burn them
rightly, build them faithfully, with mortar
faithfully tempered, they will stand, I believe, barring earthquakes and cannons, for
6,000 years if you like! Etruscan Pottery (baked
clay, but rightly baked) is some
3,000 years of age, and still fresh as an infant. Nothing I know is more lasting than
a well-made brick,  we have them here, at
the head of this Garden (wall once of a
Manor Park,) which are in their third or
fourth century (Henry Eighth's time, I was
told,) and still perfect in every particular.

Truly the state of London houses and
London house-building, at this time, who
shall express how detestable it is, how frightful! For there lies in it not the Physical
mischief only, but the Moral too, which is
far more. I have often sadly thought of this.
That a fresh human soul should be born in
such a place; born in the midst of a concrete
mendacity; taught at every moment not to
abhor a lie but to think a lie all proper, the
fixed custom and general law of man, and
to twine its young affections round that sort
of thing! England needs to be rebuilt once
every seventy years. Built it once rightly,
the expense will be say fifty per cent. more;
but it will stand till the day of judgment.

Every seventy years we shall save the expense of building all England over again!
Say nine-tenths of the expense, say three-fourths of it allowing for the changes necessary or permissible in the change of things;)
and in rigorous arithmetic, such is the saving possible to you; laying under your nose
there; soliciting you to pick it up,  by the
mere act of behaving like sons of Adam, not like scandalous esurient Phantasms and
sons of Bel and the Dragon.

Here is a thrift of money, if you want
money! The money-saving would (you can
compute in what short length of time) pay
your National Debt for you, bridge the
ocean for you; wipe away your
smoky nuisances, your muddy ditto, your
miscellaneous ditto, and make the face
of England clean again;  and all this I
reckon as mere zero in comparison with the
accompanying improvement to your poor
souls,  now dead in trespasses and sins,
drowned in beer-butts, wine-butts, in gluttonies, slaveries, quackeries, but recalled
then to blessed life again, and the sight of
Heaven and Earth instead of Payday, and
Meux and Co.'s Entire. Oh, my bewildered brothers, what foul infernal Circe has
come over you, and changed you from men
once really rather noble of their kind, into
beavers, into hogs and asses, and beasts of
the field or the slum! I declare I had rather die....

One hears sometimes of religious controversies running very high, about faith,
works, grace, prevenient grace, the Arches
Court and Essays and Reviews;  into
none of which do I enter, or concern myself with your entering. One
thing I will
remind you of, that the essence and outcome of all religions, creeds, and liturgies
whatsoever is, to do one's work in a faithful
manner. Unhappy caitiff, what to you is
the use of orthodoxy, if with every stroke
of your hammer you are breaking all the
Ten Commandments,  operating upon
Devil's dust, and endeavouring to reap
where you have not sown?  But to return
to our Aristocracy by title.

VII.

Orsonism is not what will hinder our
Aristocracy from still reigning, still, or much
farther than now, to the very utmost limit
of their capabilities and opportunities, in
the new times that come. What are these opportunities, granting the capability to
be (as I believe) very considerable if seriously exerted ?  This is a question of the
highest interest just now.

In their own Domains and land territories,
it is evident each of them can still, for certain years and decades, be a complete king;
and may, if he strenuously try, mould and
manage everything, till both his people and
his dominion correspond gradually to the
ideal he has formed. Refractory subjects he
has the means of banishing; the relations
between all classes, from the biggest farmer
to the poorest orphan ploughboy, are under
his control; nothing ugly or unjust or improper, but he could by degrees undertake
steady war against, and manfully subdue or
extirpate. Till all his Domain were, [p.685]
through every field and homestead of it,
and were maintained in continuing and being, manlike, decorous, fit; comely to the
eye and to the soul of whoever wisely looked
on it; or honestly lived in it. This is a
beautiful ideal; which might he carried out
on all sides to indefinite lengths,  not in
management of land only, but in thousand-fold countenancing, protecting and
encouraging of human worth, and dis-countenancing and sternly repressing the want of
ditto, wherever met with among surrounding mankind. Till the whole surroundings
of a nobleman were made noble like himself; and all men should recognise that here
verily was a bit of kinghood ruling "by
the Grace of God," in difficult circumstances, but
not in vain.

This were a way, if this were commonly
adopted, of by degrees reinstating Aristocracy
in all the privileges, authorities, reverences
and honours it ever had, in its palmiest
times, under any Kaiser Barbarossa, Henry
Fowler (Heinrich der Vogeler), Henry Fine-Scholar
(Beau-clerc), or Wilhelmus Bastardus the Acquirer; this would be divine;
blessed is every individual that shall manfully, all his life, solitary or in fellowship,
address himself to this! But, alas, this is an
ideal, and I've practically little faith in it.
Discerning well how few would seriously
adopt this as a trade in life, I can only say,
"Blessed is every one that does!"  Readers can observe that only zealous aspirants
to be "noble" and worthy of their title
(who are not a numerous class) could adopt
this trade; and that of these few, only the
fewest, or the actually noble, could to much
effect do it when adopted. "Management
of one's land on this principle," yes, in some
degree this might be possible: but as to "fostering merit" or human worth, the
question would arise (as it did with a late
Noble Lord still in wide enough esteem),*
"What is merit? The opinion one man
entertains of another! (Hear hear!) By this
plan of diligence in promoting human worth,
you would do little to redress our griefs;
this plan would be a quenching of the fire
by oil: a dreadful plan! (In fact, this is
what you may see everywhere going on just
now; this is what has reduced us to the pass
we are at !)  To recognise merit you must
first yourself have it; to recognise false
merit, and crown it as true, because a long
tail runs after it, is the saddest operation
under the sun; and it is one you have only
to open your eyes and see every day. Alas! no? Ideals won't
carry many people
far. To have an Ideal generally done, it
must be compelled by the vulgar appetite
there is to do it, by indisputable advantage seen in doing it.

In such an independent position; acknowledged king of one's own territories,
well withdrawn from the raging inanities of "politics," leaving the loud rabble and their
spokesmen to consummate all that in their
own sweet way, and make Anarchy again
horrible, and Government or real Kingship
the thing desirable,  one fancies there
might be actual scope for a kingly soul to
aim at unfolding itself at imprinting itself
in all manner of beneficent arrangements
and improvements of things around it.
Schools, for example, schooling and training
of its young subjects in the way that they
should go, and in the things that they should
do: what a boundless outlook that of schools,
and of improvement in school methods, and
school purposes, which in these ages lie
hitherto all superannuated and to a frightful
degree inapplicable! Our schools go all
upon the vocal hitherto; no clear aim in
them but to teach the young creature how
he is to speak, to utter himself by tongue
and pen;  which supposing him even to
have something to utter, as he so very rarely
has, is by no means the thing he specially
wants in our times. How he is to work, to
behave and do; that is the question for him
which he seeks the answer of in schools; 
in schools, having now so little chance of it
elsewhere. In other times, many or most
of his neighbors round him, his superiors
over him, if he looked well and could take
example, and learn by what he saw, were
in use to yield him very much of answer to
this vitallest of questions: but now they do
not, or do it fatally the reverse way! Talent of speaking grows daily commoner
among one's neighbors; amounts already to
a weariness and a nuisance, so barren is it
of great benefit, and liable to be of great
hurt; but the talent of right conduct, of
wise and useful behaviour seems to grow
rarer every day, and is nowhere taught in
the streets and thoroughfares any more.
Right schools were never more desirable
than now. Nor ever more unattainable,
by public clamouring and jargoning than
now. Only the wise Ruler (acknowledged
king in his own territories), taking counsel
with the wise, and earnestly pushing and
endeavouring all his days, might do some-
thing in it. It is true, I suppose him to be
capable of recognising and searching out
"the wise," who are apt not to be found on
the high roads at present, or only to be [p.686] transiently
passing there, with closed lips,
swift step, and possibly a grimmish aspect
of countenance, among the crowd of loquacious sham-wise. To be capable of actually
recognising and discerning these; and that
is no small postulate (how great a one I
know well):  in fact, unless our Noble by
rank be a Noble by nature, little or no success
is possible to us by him.

But granting this great postulate, what a
field in the Non-vocal School department
such as was not dreamt of before! Non-vocal; presided over by whatever of Pious
Wisdom this king could eliminate from all
corners of the impious world; and could
consecrate with means and appliances for
making the new generation by degrees, less
impious. Tragical to think of: Every new
generation is born to us direct out of Heaven; white as purest writing paper, white as
snow ;  everything we please can be written on it ;  and our pleasure and our
negligence is, To begin blotching it, scrawling,
smutching and smearing it, from the first
day it sees the sun: towards such a con-
summation of ugliness, dirt, and blackness
of darkness, as is too often visible. Woe
on us; there is no woe like this,  if we
were not sunk in stupefaction, and had still
eyes to discern or souls to feel it ! Goethe
has shadowed out a glorious far-glancing
specimen of that Non-vocal, or very partially-vocal kind of School. I myself
remember to have seen an extremely small,
but highly useful and practicable little corner of one, actually on work at Glasnevin
in Ireland about fifteen years ago; and have
often thought of it since.

VII.

I always fancy there might much be done
in the way of military drill withal. Beyond all other schooling,
and as supplement
or even as succedaneum for all other, one
often wishes the entire Population could be
thoroughly drilled; into co-operative movement, into individual behaviour, correct,
precise, and at once habitual and orderly as
mathematics, in all or in very many points,
 and ultimately in the point of actual
Military Service, should such be required of
it!

That of commanding and obeying, were
there nothing more, is it not the basis of all
human culture; ought not all to have it;
and how many ever do? I often say, The
one Official Person, royal, sacerdotal, scholastic, governmental, of our times, who is
still thoroughly a truth and a reality, and
not in great part a hypothesis, and worn-out
humbug, proposing and attempting a duty
which he fails to do,  is the Drill-Sergeant
who is master of his work, and who will
perform it. By Drill-Sergeant understand not the man in three stripes alone;
understand him as meaning all such men,
up to the Turenne, to the Friedrich of
Prussia; he does his function, he is genuine;
and from the highest to the lowest no one else does. Ask your poor King's Majesty,
Captain-General of England, Defender of
the Faith, and so much else; ask your poor
Bishop, sacred Overseer of souls; your poor
Lawyer, sacred Dispenser of justice; your
poor Doctor, ditto of health: they will all answer, "Alas, no, worthy sir, we are all of
us unfortunately fallen not a little, some of
us altogether, into the imaginary or quasi-
humbug condition, and cannot help ourselves; he alone of the three stripes, or of
the gorget and baton, does what he pretends
to!" That is the melancholy fact; well
worth considering at present.  Nay I often
consider farther, If, in any Country, the
Drill-Sergeant himself fall into the partly
imaginary or humbug condition (as is my
frightful apprehension of him here in England, on survey of him in his marvellous
Crimean expeditions, marvellous Courts
martial revelations, Newspaper controversies, and the like), what is to become of
that Country and its thrice miserable Drill-Sergeant?

But now, what is to hinder the acknowledged king in
all corners of his territory,
to introduce wisely a universal system of
Drill, not military only but human in all.
kinds; so that no child or man born in his
territory might miss the benefit of it, 
which would be immense to man, woman
and child? I would begin with it, in mild,
soft forms, so soon almost as my children
were able to stand on their legs; and. I
would never wholly remit it till they had
done with the world and me. Poor Wilderspin knew something of this; the great
Goethe evidently knew a great deal! This of
outwardly combined and plainly consociated Discipline, in simultaneous movement
and action, which may be practical, symbolical, artistic, mechanical in all degrees
and modes,  is one of the noblest capabilities of man (most sadly undervalued
hitherto); and one he takes the greatest pleasure
in exercising and unfolding, not to mention
at all the invaluable benefit it would afford
him if unfolded. From correct marching
in line, to rhythmic dancing in cotillon or
minuet,  and to infinitely higher degrees [p.687]
(that of symbolling in concert your "first
reverence," for instance supposing reverence and symbol of it to be both sincere!)
there is a natural charm in it; the fulfilment of a deep-seated, universal desire, to
all rhythmic social creatures ! In man's
heaven-born Docility, or power of being
Educated, it is estimable as perhaps the
deepest and richest element; or the next to
that of music, of Sensibility to Song, to
Harmony and Number, which some have
reckoned the deepest of all. A richer mine
than any in California for poor human
creatures; richer by what a multiple; and
hitherto as good as never opened,  worked
only for the fighting purpose. Assuredly I
would not neglect the Fighting purpose:
no, from sixteen to sixty, not a son of mine
but should know the Soldier's function too,
and be able to defend his native soil and
self, in best perfection, when need came.
But I should not begin with this; I should
carefully end with this, after careful travel
in innumerable fruitful fields by the way
leading to this.

It is strange to me, stupid creatures of
routine as we mostly are, how in all education of mankind, this of simultaneous
Drilling into combined rhythmic action, for
almost all good purposes, has been overlooked and left neglected by the elaborate and
many-sounding Pedagogues and Professorial
persons we have had for the long centuries
past! It really should be set on foot a little; and developed gradually into the multiform opulent results it holds for us. As
might well be done, by an acknowledged
king in his own territory, if he were wise.
To all children of men it is such an entertainment, when you set them to it.
I believe the vulgarest Cockney crowd, flung
out million-fold on a Whit Sunday, with
nothing but beer and dull folly to depend
on for amusement, would at once kindle into something human, if you set them to do
almost any regulated act in common. And
would dismiss their beer and dull foolery,
in the silent charm of rhythmic human
companionship, in the practical feeling,
probably new, that all of us are made on
one pattern, and are, in an unfathomable
way, brothers to one another.

Soldier-Drill, for fighting purposes, as I
have said, would be the last or finishing
touch of all these sorts of Drilling processes; and certainly the acknowledged king
would reckon it not the least important to
him, but even perhaps the most so, in these
peculiar times. Anarchic Parliaments and
Penny Newspapers might perhaps grow
jealous of him; in any case, would he have
to be cautious, punctilious, severely correct,
and obey to the letter whatever laws and
regulations they emitted on the subject.
But that done, how could the most anarchic Parliament, or Penny Editor, think of
forbidding any fellow-citizen such a manifest improvement on all the human creatures
round him? Our wise Hero Aristocrat, or
acknowledged king in his own territory,
would by no means think of employing his superlative private Field-regiment in levy of
war against the most anarchic Parliament:
on the contrary, might and would loyally but
help said Parliament in warring down much
anarchy worse than its own, and so gain
steadily new favour from it. From it, and
from all men and gods! And would have silently the consciousness, too,
that with
every new Disciplined Man, he was widening the arena of
Anti-Anarchy, of God-appointed Order in this world and Nation, 
and was looking forward to a day, very distant probably, but certain as Fate.

For I suppose it would in no moment be
doubtful to him That, between Anarchy and
Anti-ditto, it would have to come to sheer
fight at last; and that nothing short of duel
to the death could ever void that great quarrel. And he would have his hopes, his
assurances, as to how the victory would lie.
For everywhere in this universe, and in
every nation that is not divorced from it and
in the act of perishing forever, Anti-Anarchy is silently on the increase, at all
moments: Anarchy, not, but contrariwise;
having the whole universe for ever set
against it; pushing it slowly at all moments
towards suicide and annihilation. To Anarchy, however million-headed, there is no
victory possible. Patience, silence, diligence, ye chosen of the world! Slowly or
fast in the course of time you will grow to
a minority that can actually step forth
(sword not yet drawn, but sword ready to
be drawn), and say "here are we, Sirs; we also are minded to
vote,  to all lengths,
as you may perceive. A company of poor
men (as friend Oliver termed us) who will
spend all our blood, if needful!" What
are Beales and his 50,000 roughs against
such; what are the noisiest anarchic Parliaments, in majority of a million to one,
against such? Stubble against fire. Fear
not, my friend; the issue is very certain
when it comes so far as this!

______________________________________

Footnotes

* - [p.676] "More than half a million"
(Lunt, Origin of the Late War, New York, 1867) [back]